Extreme Rules (2017)

The 2017 Extreme Rules was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE, held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's main roster brand, Raw. It was the ninth annual Extreme Rules event and took place on June 4, 2017, at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. This was the second Extreme Rules held at this venue, after the 2010 event when it was known as 1st Mariner Arena. The theme of the event was that it featured various hardcore-based matches. Seven matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. Only three of the main card's matches were contested under a hardcore stipulation. In the main event, Samoa Joe defeated Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Finn Bálor, and Bray Wyatt in an Extreme Rules fatal five-way match to earn a Universal Championship match at Great Balls of Fire. In other prominent matches, Cesaro and Sheamus defeated The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy) in a Steel Cage match to win their second Raw Tag Team Championship as a team, and in the opening bout, The Miz defeated Dean Ambrose to win his seventh Intercontinental Championship. This was the first Extreme Rules event held since the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016. This was also the only to be brand-exclusive for either brand split period. The first three events in 2009, 2010, and 2011 had featured wrestlers from both Raw and SmackDown as brand-exclusive PPV events during the first brand split were discontinued in April 2007, and then the first brand split ended in August 2011. The 2018 event was again planned to be Raw-exclusive, but brand-exclusive PPV and livestreaming events for the main roster under the second brand split were discontinued following WrestleMania 34 in April that year.